Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

as a precursor to one. Four B-iB Lancer bombers lifted off from [•Imeiulnrl’

Air Force Base in Alaska, followed by two KC-io tankers. The combination

of latitude and time of year guaranteed darkness. Their bomb bays were fit-

ted with fuel tanks instead of weapons. Each aircraft had a crew of lour, pilot

and copilot, plus two systems operators.

The Lancer was a sleek aircraft, a bomber equipped with a fighter’s stick

instead of a more conventional control yoke, and pilots who had flown both

said that the B-iB felt and flew like a slightly heavy F-4 Phantom, its greater

weight and larger size giving the bomber greater stability and, for now, a

smoother ride. For the moment the staggered formation of six flew interna-

tional route R-220, maintaining the lateral spacing expected of commercial

air traffic.

A thousand miles and two hours out, passing Shemya and leaving ground-

control radar coverage, the six aircraft turned north briefly. The tankers held

steady while the bombers one by one eased underneath to take on fuel, a

procedure that lasted about twelve minutes in each case. Finished, the bomb-

ers continued southwest while the tankers turned to land at Shemya, where

they would refill their own tanks.

The four bombers descended to twenty-five thousand feet, which took

them below the regular stream of commercial air traffic and allowed more

freedom of maneuver. They continued close to R-22O, the westernmost of

the commercial flight tracks, skimming down past the Kamchatka Penin-

sula.

Systems were flipped on in the back. Though designed as a penetrating

bomber, the B-iB fulfilled many roles, one of which was electronic intelli-

gence. The body of any military aircraft is studded with small structures that

look for all the world like the fins on fish. These objects are invariably anten-

nas of one sort or another, and the graceful fairing has no more sinister pur-

pose than to reduce drag. The Lancer had many of them, designed to gather

in radar and other electronic signals and pass them along to internal equip-

ment, which analyzed the data. Some of the work was done in real-time by

the flight crew. The idea was for the bomber to monitor hostile radar, the

better to allow its crew to avoid detection and deliver its bombs.

At the NOGAL reporting point, about three hundred miles outside the

Japanese Air Defense Identification Zone, the bombers split into a patrol

line, with roughly fifty miles separating the aircraft, and descended to ten

thousand feet. Crewmen rubbed their hands together, pulled their seat belts a

little tighter, and started concentrating. Cockpit chatter lessened to that re-

quired by the mission, and tape recorders were flipped on. Satellite monitor-

ing told them that the Japanese Air Force had airborne-early-warning

aircraft, £-7675, operating almost continuously, and those were the defen-

sive assets that the bomber crews feared most. Flying high, the £-7675 could

see far. Mobile, they could move to deal with threats with a high degree of

efficiency. Worst of all, they invariably operated in conjunction with fight-

ers, and fighters had eyes in them, and behind the eyes were brains, and

weapons with brains in them were the most frightening of all.

“Okay, there’s the first one,” one of the systems operators said. It wasn’t

really the first. For practice of sorts, they’d calibrated their equipment on

Russian air-defense radars, but for the first time in the collective memory of

all sixteen airmen, it wasn’t Russian radars and fighters which concerned

them. “Low-frequency, fixed, known location.”

They were receiving what operators often called “fuzz.” The radar in

question was under the horizon and too far away to detect their semistealthy

aircraft. As you can see a person holding a flashlight long before the light

reveals your presence to the holder, so it was with radar. The powerful trans-

mitter was as much a warning beacon to unwanted guests as a lookout for its

owners. The location, frequency, pulse-repetition rate, and estimated power

of the radar was noted and logged. A display on the electronic-warfare offi-

cer’s board showed the coverage for that radar. The display was repeated on

the pilot’s console, with the danger area marked in red. He’d stay well clear

of it.

“Next,” the EWO said. “Wow, talk about power-this one’s airborne.

Must be one of their new ones. It’s definitely moving south-to-north, now

bearing two-zero-two.”

“Copy,” the pilot acknowledged quietly, his eyes scanning all around the

dark sky. The Lancer was really proceeding on autopilot, but his right hand

was only inches from the stick, ready to jerk the bomber to the left, dive to

the deck, and go to burner. There were fighters somewhere off to his right,

probably two F-I5S, but they would stay close to £-7675.

‘ ‘Another one, one-nine-five, just appeared . .. different freq and-stand

by,” the electronics officer said. “Okay, major frequency change. He’s

probably in an over-the-horizon mode now.”

“Could he have us?” the pilot asked, checking his avoidance screen

again. Outside the red keep-out zone was a yellow section that the pilot

thought of as the “maybe” zone. They were at most a few minutes away

from entering that zone, and “maybe” seemed very worrisome indeed at the

moment, nearly three thousand miles from Elmendorf Air Force Base.

“Not sure. It’s possible. Recommend we come left,” the EWO said judi-

ciously. On that advice, he felt the aircraft bank five degrees. The mission

wasn’t about taking risks. It was about gathering information, as a gambler

would observe a table before taking his seat and putting his chips in play.

“I think there’s somebody out there,” one of the £-767 operators said.

“Zero-one-five, southerly course. Hard to hold it.”

The rotodome atop the £-767 was like few others in the world, and all of

them were Japanese. Three of them were operating on the eastern ap-

proaches to their country. Transmitting up to three million watts of electrical

energy, it had four times the power of anything the Americans had aloft, hut

the true sophistication of the system lay not in its power but in its mode ol

delivery. Essentially a smaller version of the SPY radar carried on I he

Kongo-class destroyers, the array was composed of thousands of sol id-stale

diodes that could scan both electronically and mechanically, and jump in

frequency to suit the needs of the moment. For long-range detection, a rela-

tively low frequency was best. However, though the waves curved around

the visible horizon somewhat, it was at the cost of poor resolution. The oper-

ator was getting a hit on only every third sweep or so. The system software

had not yet learned to distinguish clutter from the purposeful activities of a

human mind, at least not in all cases, and not, unfortunately, at this fre-

quency setting… .

“Are you sure?” the senior controller asked over the intercom line. He’d

just called up the display himself and didn’t see anything yet.

“Here.” The first man moved his cursor and marked the contact when it

reappeared. He wished they could improve that software. “Wait! Look

here!” He selected another blip and marked it, too. It disappeared almost at

once but came back in fifteen seconds. “See, southerly course-speed five

hundred knots.”

“Excellent.” The senior controller activated his radio microphone and

reported to his ground station that Japanese air defenses were being probed

for the first time. The only surprise, really, was that it had taken them so

long. This is where things get interesting, he thought, wondering what would

happen next, now that the games had begun.

“No more of those Es?” the pilot asked.

“No, just the two. I thought I had a little fuzz a minute ago,” the EWO

said,’ ‘but it faded out.” He didn’t need to explain that with the sensitivity of

his instruments, he was probably getting readings on garage-door openers as

well. A moment later another ground radar was plotted. The patrol line an-

gled back west one by one as they passed the coverage of the two £-7675,

still on a southwesterly base course, now halfway down the largest home

island, Honshu, which was well over three hundred miles to their right. The

copilots of each of the four aircraft looked exclusively west now, while the

aircraft commanders scanned for possible air traffic to their front. It was

tense but routine, not unlike driving through a neighborhood in which one

didn’t want to live. So long as the lights were all green, you didn’t get too

worried-but you didn’t like the looks your car got.

The crew of the third £-767 was unhappy, and their fighter escorts even

more so. Enemy aircraft were looking at their coastline, and even if they

were six hundred kilometers out, they still didn’t belong in the neighbor-

hood. But they switched their radar systems to standby. Probably EC-1355,

they thought, surveillance aircraft, assembling an electronic order of battle

for their country. And if the American mission were to gather information,